Peanut Butter Blossoms with Dark Chocolate Kisses

You know what I haven't done in awhile? Bake. I'm not sure why it's been so long, I think it's because I've had a lot of other things to deal with in the last month and just haven't thought about baking. But luckily I planned ahead, and I had all the ingredients for Peanut Butter Blossoms with Dark Chocolate Kisses in my pantry, ready for when I was ready to bake them. And that day was today!

Do you remember those cookies? They're such classics. I remember they used to sell them in travel packs of two and I would take them with my lunch. I would always eat the cookie around the kiss first before eating the chocolate. So good.

When I saw on Bakerella that she made these classic cookies, but with a dark chocolate twist, I knew that I needed to make those. I have a growing addiction to dark chocolate so I figured I couldn't go wrong with them. Plus, they're so simple to make! They're a good way to get back into the baking groove.

First, warm your oven to the classic 350 degrees after setting out a stick of butter to soften.

Then combine 1.5 cups flour, 3/4 tsp baking soda, and 1/2 tsp salt in a small bowl with a whisk. Set aside.

Then take the 1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter, and cream with 1 cup of peanut butter. One trick I learned (I assume via Pinterest, I can't remember, but that's a pretty safe bet), is that when working with sticky ingredients like peanut butter, take your measuring cup and run it under hot water for a few seconds. Then dump the water out, but don't dry the cup. Then scoop your ingredient (in this case, peanut butter) into the measuring cup to get the right amount, and then dump it into the mixing bowl. Because of the hot water, it won't stick to the cup and so you won't have to keep scraping to get all the peanut butter out and it'll be easier to clean!

You'll want to cream it for a few minutes on medium speed so they're fully incorporated. Then add in 1 cup sugar and mix until fluffy.

Next up is 1 egg and 2 tsps vanilla extract that you can add at the same time. Then just mix until it's well incorporated.

After that, you add in the flour mixture and mix until well combined!

The dough will be pretty stiff at this point, which is perfect! You'll want to take the dough and roll it into 1 inch balls. Then you'll roll them in granulated sugar before putting them on a parchment lined baking sheet. I was able to fit about 20 cookies on each sheet (for a total of 40 cookies). They don't spread out much, so you can fit plenty to a sheet.

After baking for about 9 minutes, take the cookies out of the oven, and immediately push a dark chocolate Hershey's kiss into the center of the cookie! I unwrapped all the chocolates while the cookies were baking so this was a quick step. 

The cookies were super soft and super tasty! Because I put the chocolate in the cookie while it was warm, it made the kisses really soft. The dark chocolate melds very well with the peanut butter and wasn't overpowering which sometimes dark chocolate can be. These are definitely on the list to make again!

Purse Snatcher

So, I really debated blogging about this...mostly because of the stupid thing I did to cause it. But, since part of this blog is about the adventures I have, this is certainly an adventure worth talking about. Let me start at the beginning.

I went to this large store (I won't name them, even though what happened wasn't their fault), in a town with a reputation for being ridiculously safe, in the middle of the day on a Sunday. I got a cart because I had a lot of stuff to pick up, and I decided to put my purse in the little seat part of the cart. As I went to the workout clothes/pajama area, I walked two feet away from my cart to grab something, not really thinking how absolutely stupid that was.

And then I hear it. I walk back to my cart, look in, confirm that my purse is now gone, and then look up. I didn't see her grab my purse, but I was easily able to pick out who it was because she was walking far too fast. I called out to her as I walk after her, hoping that maybe embarrassing her will get her to stop. All it did was make her take off in a dead sprint. I chase her through the girls clothes section, through the checkout lanes, to the doors (where I tripped, fell, but got up because I wanted my purse back), chased her out into the parking lot and through some cars, through multiple lanes of the lot. I finally caught up to the lady, who lucky for me was wearing a hooded sweatshirt. I grabbed her hood and pulled her back to stop her.

I yelled at her to give me my purse and she kept saying for me to give her my money. Then she said if I didn't give her money, she would get her gun and shoot me. Luckily I had some cash on me, so I told her that I would give her all my cash if she would just give me my purse. Finally she let me get the cash out, she took it from my hand, and took off to her car. After looking at her, I'm pretty sure that drugs and desperation played a huge part because she really wasn't interested in anything but my cash, and what I had really wasn't much. Someone called the police, and I told them everything. I doubt they'll catch her, and since she only got my cash, it's probably a low priority for them, but it was still pretty crazy.

So that's the story. Now here are a few things to learn from it:

• DON'T LEAVE YOUR PURSE IN YOUR CART. It's common sense, I know. And I had a momentary lapse in it. NEVER doing that again. It was very stupid of me.
• You really should NOT run after someone who steals from you. I got very lucky in my situation, and I only chased after her because it was pure instinct when she started running. I also really didn't think she would get out of the store and that someone would stop her. I wasn't trying to take a stand or anything and make a statement about not being a victim. After it all happened, I just thought, that was SO stupid. You really shouldn't chase these people because you never know what could happen. She could have legitimately had a gun, or a knife, or could have punched the mess out of me. 
• In line with this, don't praise me in front of your kids. I get that what I did was pretty awesome or whatever, but don't encourage the same action in your children!
• If you see someone chasing someone through the store, yelling "STOP HER SHE HAS MY PURSE," then you should consider helping them. If you're too far away from the situation, okay, there's nothing you can do. If you're an employee, I know you're trained not to do anything, so okay. But if you are someone who is in our path, who sees us running towards you, who hears me yelling, who I make eye contact with, DO SOMETHING. Don't just stand there looking like an idiot.
  
  I could probably count about five people I looked straight in the eye and tried to get them to help me, and they didn't. Yes, I get that kind of goes against what I said above, but it is a little absurd that everyone just stood by and did nothing, especially when they had carts they could have easily pushed into her. I probably could have forgiven that if someone had even come up to me out in the parking lot to see if I was okay after the woman took off. I sat on the curb for a good few minutes, and I know people in the parking lot, in that lane, saw me. Yet not one person even came up to me to see if I was okay. They just kept walking by like nothing happened. I just think it's one of those common decency things that clearly nobody at this store had that day.
  
  I did eventually have people ask me if I was okay and if I got my purse back once I was back in the store, and they clearly were people who were not in any real position to help, but it really didn't make up for it. I get that the area is really desensitized to crime, but it's one of those things where if I had seen it happen, and I was close to it, I don't know how I could have ignored it like that.
• If (and I hope that's never) this happens to you, immediately write down everything you can think of about the person and what happened. I know that's criminology 101, and I know in this situation nothing will probably come of it, but it's always something good to remember. 

It was definitely one of the craziest, stupidest, most badass things I have ever done (almost beating skydiving). And I have a nice bruise on my arm (from what part of that, I'm not sure) to show for it. So it definitely made my weekend a little fun! I probably wouldn't be laughing about it had it turned out differently, but I most definitely got very lucky. 

Thanks to Tyler for this fun meme! 

Vote Against Project

I typically don't like to get political on my blog; I save my opinions on those topics for other mediums. My blog has mostly been about what I bake, what I craft, what I read, and random fun things I do (even though I haven't been doing too much lately...I'm working on that). However, when North Carolina's legislature decided to put an amendment on the May 8th ballot to define marriage as one between a man and a woman, I became offended, and knew I needed to speak out in some way.

I am offended that my state would be so closed minded, offended by the discrimination, and offended that my state would be okay with limiting benefits to not only same-sex couples, but heterosexual domestic partnerships and civil unions as well.

I believe that every single person, no matter what, should have equal rights and privileges. Even though I personally plan to marry a man one day, I still strongly believe there is absolutely no reason everyone should not be allowed those same rights that me and my husband will automatically receive just because we're a man and a woman, and just because we chose to marry.

I don't understand why people think allowing these rights for everyone will damage the marriage they personally have, or that it will even affect their life in any way, to the point where they fight to deny and prevent these rights by putting this amendment in our constitution. I read a great quote the other day by someone after Prop 8 in California was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that said "Giving someone else equal rights does not infringe or take away rights from you. It just makes it illegal to enforce your prejudice and hate. It's that simple."

This is not a partisan issue. It is a human rights issue, a fairness issue, an acceptance issue. What are we without equality, without acceptance, without openness? Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but I truly believe that your opinion shouldn't affect allowing others to have basic human rights some of us are or will be lucky enough to receive without question.

Some people out there do not have the full story. They do not understand the full implications of what this constitutional amendment will do if passed. It is not just about potentially disallowing same-sex marriages (which we should allow them, and hopefully will at some point). Here is a good link to the Coalition to Protect NC Families that will give you the full scope: http://www.protectncfamilies.org/issues.

With this amendment on the ballot, a friend of mine, Curtis Brown, decided to do something about it. He gathered a team together, and began the Vote Against Project.




The project is taking them all across North Carolina as they take pictures of North Carolinians and others who are against this amendment being added to our constitution.

When it comes to a vote like this, awareness is the most important thing, especially with it being on the ballot on May 8th, and not a typical high-turnout election time like November. Most people don't tend to show up for primaries it seems, but at least it won't just be about the Republican presidential candidate anymore, now that the governor's race is wide open here. This project is for bringing awareness about the amendment as well as providing a constant reminder of when the vote will occur so everyone can go out and Vote Against.

I went to the photo shoot on January 26th at Busy Bee in downtown Raleigh with my friend Katie. The thing I noticed the most was the complete happiness in the whole room. Everyone I encountered believes wholeheartedly in what they are doing and are so happy to see so many people agree with them and be willing to put up a fight against injustices. Everyone involved in the project, from the team to the volunteers, were just plain awesome and the reason I'm sure this project will be successful.

So if you haven't already, go to the Vote Against website: www.voteagainst.org. They have multiple tour dates, so find the one closest to you. Get your picture taken. Put it as your Facebook profile picture (which I did), your Twitter picture (which I have), your Google+ photo (done and done), and if you have a blog, blog about it (you're reading it!). And remember on May 8th to vote AGAINST the amendment. You'll be presented with the choice to choose "For" or "Against", so make sure you choose AGAINST.